You know what Jane Hamsher, just stay the hell out of Ohio

Proving that no good deed goes unpunished in Kos-land, I posted this diary today, and got flamed like a champ.

Ok, so I wrote a diary with a lot of invective in it against Jane Hamsher. ?I apologize to this community for the invective. ?I do not apologize to Jane Hamsher. ?Here’s why.

First, I’m an Italian/Polish kid from Cleveland, which means, among other things, I have a big, loud mouth. You have to warm up those pipes if you’re gonna fight for the government cheese on the table when you’re a kid in 1976.

And being an Ohio blogger who’s spent 20 years active at every level of Ohio politics fighting for Democrats, and ONLY Democrats – well, that doesn’t help tone it down. I like to call myself a Rat Pack Democrat – think Frank Sinatra with a martini and brass knuckles with the mouth of a sailor – in a tuxedo. We don’t fool around in Ohio, and there’s a reason for that.

Every four years, the entire nation, in fact, the world, looks to Ohio to decide who will be our president.

And every four years, every single Democrat in the country expects us Ohio Democrats to put those electoral votes into the Democratic column.

That includes every one of the people who read, comment, diary, and front page at this site.

Every one of you.

We welcome that in Ohio. We relish it. If every four years, the world needs some folks to keep the foul cesspit that is Republicanism from taking over our country, well yes, we’d like that to be us, thank you very much. Bring it.

Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we fail.

Which brings me to Jane Hamsher.

Every instance of people like Jane Hamsher pulling fast ones from our left flank, like the con job she pulled on the public option only to now propose alliances with teabaggers to kill the entire effort makes it harder for Ohio Democrats to win those electoral votes. The more instances like it, the higher they pile up, the harder it becomes to overcome them.

Why? Because it emboldens Ohio Republicans, gives them solace, and demoralizes Democrats. It makes it harder for the next organizing effort, and the one after that. It makes our congressional delegation turn a deaf ear. In the new blog driven dynamic, such tomfoolery makes Ohio bloggers think twice before joining an organizing effort online. We can’t afford that hesitation, not in Ohio, not when the presidency hangs on a precinct-level thread every four years.

When we fight for Ohio for Democrats, we do so in close quarters, hand to hand, bare knuckle throwdowns. It ain’t pretty. I’ve spent over a year documenting it in video. Our Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner spent a month dodging death threats to keep our election processes clean in 2008.

As tough as it is, it’s a lot of fun, it entertains us as much as it entertains all of you. We love it. It makes our victories that much sweeter.

But it also makes our defeats that much more bitter. We know the precincts where we could have done better, the doors we could have knocked on, the neighborhoods. Those defeats have real consequences for this country, and the entire world. The flip side of Ohio having the opportunity to deliver these electoral votes? Watching the consequences of your failure, especially during the Bush years, is almost unbearable.

And Jane Hamsher is Exhibit A in how we end up in defeat in Ohio. Not because she’s too liberal, or too far left, or too strident, but because she traded on the trust of people in this state, used it to her ends, forced her agenda on our congressional delegation, through Ohio Democratic activists, then flushed it all down the toilet when it suited her self promotion. All to, in the end, propose an absurd alliance with the rotting stinking core of Republicanism which she, and all of you, will be begging us Ohioans to defeat in 2012. All of which, especially if she succeeded in this “kill the bill” alliance with teabaggers, would make delivering those electoral votes even more difficult.

So those are my reasons for getting vulgar in a diary. I promise to be less vulgar in the future. As a commenter noted, a shrill tone, (though entertaining!), doesn’t help. My apologies. Like any Rat Pack Democrat, we’re all softies inside – which is probably why I did a mashup like this during the primaries.

I stand by the substance of my criticisms of Jane Hamsher. And in 2012, when she and every last one of her apologists are begging us to deliver Ohio for our incumbent Democratic president, which will happen as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, we’ll be remembering her behavior. We keep track.

Because we intend to win Ohio for Barack Obama in 2012. Just so you know.